Topic Research: The End (Of the World as we know it? - Maybe it's fine...)

 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice. 

- Robert Frost, 1920. Online source

 

"Fire on Ice.. or snow" by . : : v i S H a l : : . is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  

  

 

The Norse thought the end of the world would be a wild battle, gods, giants, creatures and people all included.  Ragnarok would be the end of everything. The stars would even go out but because there is hope - a couple of survivors remain. Those very lucky few would get to live on a newly created world. One of the signs that Ragnarok is on the way seems to be the arrival of multiple winters, but no summer. Apparently if winter is actually coming, Ragnarok may be coming too. A modern or even futuristic Ragnarok would be interesting. Does nuclear winter count for skipping summers?

 

(There was a very round about research stream that lead to this, but apparently the original Night of the Living Dead film from 1968 is in the public domain. Is this a book? Well, no, but I can't guarantee that the living dead won't creep into my stories. Ishtar was keen to have the dead eat the living too.)

Atlantis! It was destroyed in myth. So it was the end of that world and depending on what you read it might be pretty dramatic. Fire and water and everyone really needed like some sort of advanced volcano warning system. This one could be a lot of fun either by giving people technology or having a character like the Doctor passing through to carry folks off. Also you could completely leave it as something that happened a long, long time ago and work forward with why everyone still talks about it. 

And then there is Pompeii & Herculaneum. It was destroyed in reality in 79 AD. It's been the subject of several shows or movies but the old stories are basically limited to what we know from Pliny the Younger. It is enough to start with though and volcanoes are such interesting science. It's tempting to play with time here as well - the surrounding area is not exactly deserted now. I wonder how evacuating so many people would work out. It's not an easy thing to do as we've seen with things like hurricanes in the US.